Children’s of Alabama Hospital Customer of Pure Storage

Pure Storage, Inc. announced that the Children’s of Alabama hospital chose the company as the organization’s data solution to ensure that nurses, doctors, practitioners, as well as administrative and support staff have immediate access to mission-critical applications.

This implementation helped to reduce log-in times for clinical applications and optimize the time that they spend caring for patients.

Last year, Children’s of Alabama provided care for children from 46 states and seven countries, handling more than 675,000 out-patient visits and 15,000 inpatient admissions, while also housing the pediatric program of the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB).

“Data isn’t just mission-critical. It is inherent to our mission,” stated Bob Sarnecki, CIO, Children’s of Alabama. “The information we keep, process and put in front of our physicians and medical team not only provides the basis for evidence-based care, the data is the basis of decisions that can change the life of a child forever.“

The hospital’s IT infrastructure required a major update, which included the selection of new vendors for compute, storage and networking solutions. Its VDI – used by some 3,000 clinicians throughout the day, with about half that number accessing the Allscripts Electronic Health Record (EHR) system at any one time – was experiencing insufficient storage performance, which resulted in delayed log-in times.

Children’s of Alabama evaluated several vendors and chose Pure Storage. It quickly migrated its entire VDI to the new platforms. The speed of access to all the critical clinical applications improved, with VDI log-in improving from 2 to 5mn, down to just 20s. In addition, 100% uptime of the Pure systems has helped to keep access to critical patient data up and running 24/7. These improvements enable physicians to spend more time with patients which help improve outcomes.

Pure Storage solutions also help to improve the amount of attention that doctors can give to patients. One of the most common procedures performed at the hospital is to insert ear tubes, with surgeons taking about 3mn per ear. The previous system required each surgeon to spend 10mn entering documentation for what had been a 6mn procedure. The new VDI and EHR infrastructure cut documentation time in half, allowing surgeons to perform one-or-two additional procedures per shift.

“Children’s of Alabama is laser-focused on achieving the best possible outcomes for its patients. Technology and data are essential to that mission. Mission-critical healthcare IT systems must be available 24/7 and performing optimally – putting lifesaving information at the fingertips of healthcare professionals and enabling them to focus on what they do best, care for patients,” said Josh Gluck, VP of global healthcare technology strategy, Pure.

Reasons for Choosing Pure Storage
Pure’s Evergreen storage program – a 100% non-disruptive product architecture with a flexible buying program designed to free customers from the legacy storage approach – served as a major factor in Children’s of Alabama’s decision-making process.

“With Evergreen, we could purchase a framework in which we could add storage for more than three years and avoid a forklift upgrade,” said Sarnecki.

In addition to the benefits that came with Evergreen Storage, Sarnecki also values the relationship that has been built with Pure.

“While the key benefits of Pure solutions – performance, 100% uptime, ease of management, a superior long-term ROI, and the elimination of forklift upgrades – played an important role, our relationship with Pure continues to be key,” he adds.

• Video: Insight from Children’s of Alabama CIO, Bill Sarnecki
• Blog: How a CIO’s Storage Decision Helped Fast-track Telemedicine